Category Archives: Life

Photo Firsts (Ally, Brewer)

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Life has some more updates. Yay for life.

A lot has happened in my life since last post.
I had a two-year anniversary (although anniversaries seem kind of silly if you’re not actually married, but not any less meaningful) and I still wonder every day how I managed to be so awesomely lucky.
I tried making homemade ravioli at 1:30 AM. Still haven’t cooked it, so I have no idea how it tastes. I should do that soon.
I discovered a tasty dim sum place and went with coworkers. $5 gets me enough food for lunch and a snack… $6 gets me lunch and dinner. Cheap and tasty and mmm chewy little treat goodness.
I’m improving at running. Today I ran almost 3 miles nonstop (2.97 miles, to be exact; yay for treadmills keeping track of distances). I generally feel healthier and happier. This is also causing me to eat healthier and watch my snack intake. This is a good thing.
cpride and Marty came up from Santa Barbara and Jess came down from Seattle to visit and there was much awesomeness. Photos are posted at photos 2.

I’m flying out to Pittsburgh this Saturday and will arrive around 11:30 PM. There should be halfprice on Sunday for those interested.

Anyway, here’s my first photo of Ally:

August 26, 2005 in the cluster.

And my first photo of Brewer:

September 9, 2005 in the Underground Tour. Can you spot him?

These stats are awesome and terrible and are a testament to how many more photos I take at each event nowadays than I used to (since I now regularly fill up a 2 GB card at each event, and sometimes have filled up two).

    Ally: 2106

  • August 1, 2004 to December 31, 2004: 0
  • January 1, 2005 to May 31, 2005: 0
  • June 1, 2005 to July 31, 2005: 0
  • August 1, 2005 to December 31, 2005: 49
  • January 1, 2006 to May 31, 2006: 137
  • June 1, 2006 to July 31, 2006: 24
  • August 1, 2006 to December 31, 2006: 6
  • January 1, 2007 to May 31, 2007: 57
  • June 1, 2007 to July 31, 2007: 1
  • August 1, 2007 to December 31, 2007: 84
  • January 1, 2008 to May 31, 2008: 7
  • June 1, 2008 to July 31, 2008: 0
  • August 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008: 0
  • January 1, 2009 to present: 1741
    Brewer: 1718

  • August 1, 2004 to December 31, 2004: 0
  • January 1, 2005 to May 31, 2005: 0
  • June 1, 2005 to July 31, 2005: 0
  • August 1, 2005 to December 31, 2005: 59
  • January 1, 2006 to May 31, 2006: 138
  • June 1, 2006 to July 31, 2006: 12
  • August 1, 2006 to December 31, 2006: 26
  • January 1, 2007 to May 31, 2007: 89
  • June 1, 2007 to July 31, 2007: 18
  • August 1, 2007 to December 31, 2007: 0
  • January 1, 2008 to May 31, 2008: 280
  • June 1, 2008 to July 31, 2008: 107
  • August 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008: 195
  • January 1, 2009 to present: 794

Mmm pasta

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Edit: Life has another update. Yay life.

I was bored so I tried my hand at making fresh pasta today. It was much easier than I was expecting and turned into tasty shrimp linguini.

1 cup whole wheat flour
2 eggs
Pinch of salt
8 precooked shrimp
1/4 onion, chopped
Spices to taste
Dash of olive oil
Vodka sauce (or other sauce, if preferred)

Mix flour and salt with one whole egg and one egg white. Knead thoroughly until uniform. Dough will be a little sticky, but it should stretch easily and not break. Cover working area in flour and roll out dough one half at a time until really, really thin (this will take a while… took me about an hour to roll out all of the dough). Cut into strips of desired width.

In a pot, stir chopped onion and spices in a dash of olive oil until cooked. Add shrimp and cook until hot. Set aside.

Boil pasta for 3-4 minutes or until tender and chewy. Drain and immediately toss with a bit of Vodka sauce. Cover with additional Vodka sauce and shrimp/onion mixture. Serves 2.

Om nom nom nom. I could have made the sauce from scratch too, but meh. Good sauce is often more expensive to make from scratch, especially if you buy stuff like Classico on uber-sale.

Also, I need to buy a rolling pin. I rolled out the pasta with an empty glass bottle.


Smoothies!

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Ally and I made smoothies!

Strawberries + ice cream + milk = tasty
Apple + grape + carrot = too chewy
Carrot + ice cream + milk = tasty
Carrot + ice cream + milk + rum = too much rum

Also we made another carrot cake using gluten-free flour so she and Matt can eat it. Nom nom.

Edit: s/Smoothies/Shakes/
Happy, Chris?

Oh god today’s wanderings were so awesome. Matt and Ally and I went to see the windmill in Golden Gate Park and then went walking on the beach for a while. Then was wandering around the area (including a European grocery, where European == Russian) and dinner at an awesome awesome seafood place (Pacific Cafe) that was a little pricey but totally totally worth it. Om nom nom nom!

Foodings

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This past week was really nice. I should post some photos at some point.

I’ve made lots tasty food today. First was tasty french onion soup:

5 medium yellow onions, cut into slivers
olive oil
pinch of sugar
5 cups chicken broth

Cook onions over medium heat with oil in a large pot, stirring continuously for about 30-35 minutes until caramelized. Add sugar about halfway through to help caramelization. Add chicken broth and simmer for 15 minutes.

Then was carrot cake:

1.5 cups minced carrots
1 cup flour
1.5 tsp baking soda
0.5 tsp cinnamon
0.5 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
0.5 cup oil
3 tsp rum

Mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a bowl. Mix oil, sugar, and eggs in another bowl. Slowly mix dry ingredients into wet mixture. Stir in carrots and rum. Bake at 325 for 50 minutes.

Frost with mixture of cream cheese and rum (om nom nom nom) with a dash of sugar. (I mixed in a bit of honey-almond cream cheese as well to make it extra tasty.)

Recipes adapted from stuff found online, and they seem to work decently well. The most annoying parts of both were the veggie preparations… for the carrot cake, since I didn’t have a grater, I ended up mincing about 5 carrots to get what I needed. The soup required constant stirring of the onions for 35 minutes lest they burn and overcook. Meh.

I wish I had some nuts or raisins to put in the cake. It would have been much tastier.

I think “Don’t Let Me Stop You” is my favorite new (but not my new favorite) Kelly Clarkson song (although “The Day We Fell Apart” and “Cry” are very close seconds, with “Sober” still remaining my all-time favorite).

Edit: OMG this cake is so good ahhh I want more but I shouldn’t have more since it’s 1:30 AM and I should sleep soon. I recommend adding a bit more carrot than above though. Also, use less rum that I did in the cream cheese frosting.

I should go get some nuts and a zucchini and make zucchini bread.

Also, if you read my journal through the actual page, I’ve gone and recategorized some entries. There are now “Photography” and “Photoshop” categories, and the “Trips” category replaces the previous location-specific categories (such as “Toronto”) and adds a couple extra trip-related entries.